Google Picasa on the iPhone
I have finally entered the “modern” era of digital photo sharing. With all the services out there like Flickr and Picasa, I’ve yet to get beyond the oh-so-90’s habit of simply dumping my photos onto my hard drive and leaving them there.
The upside to my old habit is privacy. I don’t care to share my life with everybody else on the web. The downsides are more plentiful. 1) If my hard drive crashes, I lose all our family photos, including holidays and pictures of the kids. 2) I can only access the images while at home, at the computer. 3) how do I share multiple photos with friends/family who aren’t in front of my PC? Image sizes being what they are today, emailing several 5 megapixel images in one message can present problems.
So I finally signed up for a Google Picasa account. I’ll start piddling around with it. The free 1GB account space should be enough for a while. We’ll see how I adapt to this new paradigm.
Luckily, there is now an iPhone web interface for Picasa. It doesn’t yet allow for uploading images from your phone, but it at least allows you gallery access on your phone. So, if you’re at grandma’s and you want to show her pictures of the kid’s birthday party, you just whip out your phone (probably using 3G since g’ma probably doesn’t have wifi).
The perfect solution would be a Google-created native app, available through the iTunes App Store, which would allow for a full featured Picasa experience on the iPhone (including uploads).
Just go to picasaweb.google.com from your iphone to try it now.
Update:
While googling “iphone and picasa” I came across this tutorial which demonstrates a backdoor way to upload images from the iPhone to Picasa using your Blogger account as an intermediary. You essentially email photos to your blog, which are then automatically added to Picasa. I don’t have or want a Blogger account, so I think I’ll wait for a native app solution.
AT& In-store activation only for 3G iPhone?
Macrumors.com is reporting that in order to cut down on iPhone unlocking, 3G iPhone activation will only be done in-store at AT&T retail outlets. Now that AT&T is getting to keep 100% of the phone plan revenue (in exchange for offering a subsidy on the price of the phone), it is only logical that greater steps would be taken to be sure AT&T is getting its full value out of the relationship by cutting down on unlocked phones being used on other carriers.
Sources: Macrumors.com, Gizmodo
Apple reveals iPhone 3G details at WWDC June 9
Thanks to Steve Jobs’ keynote address at WWDC yesterday, we know much more about the new 3G version of the iphone. The most important detail? The new iPhone goes on sale July 11.
What we learned about the new iPhone:
- 3G speeds up which will be around 3x faster than the current EDGE enabled phone. WiFi will still be faster, however.
- Integrated GPS, as we all expected
- A thinner case with a plastic back, available in either black or white. The external buttons will be metal rather than plastic.
- Simultaneous voice and data conections
- Microsoft Exchange AcctiveSync
- Better battery life - 300 hours of standby, Talk-time 10 hours (as opposed to 5) on 2G networks, 5 hours of 3G talk-time (competition is 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
- flush headphone jack
Pricing was also discussed. In the US, AT&T will now subsidize the cost of the phone, just as with any other phone it offers. The new iPhone will be available in 8GB and 16GB models for $199 and $299 respectively. Macrumors.com is reporting that AT&T will no longer be sharing revenue from its iPhone plans with Apple, and it is likely the money they are keeping is offsetting the phone subsidies.
Sources: